CLIMATE CHANGE THIS WEEK: THE SOY THREAT, THE US SOLAR EXPLOSION, AND MORE!

Saving BUB, Beautiful Unique Biodiversity, as in this collage of Amazon wildlife, is another reason to preserve carbon storing forests.

Today, the Earth got a little hotter, and a little more crowded.

And the chances of Donald Trump’s family and fortune surviving climate change are small, dwindling daily and irreversibly...

(Note: OO are links to corresponding stories...)

03/10/2017 12:04 am ET

Forests: the cheapest way to store carbon...

Two Different Greens, Soy and Forest – the first feeds cattle and ever more people; the second is vital to preventing dangerous climate change, and preserving vital biodiversity. Credit Ricardo Beliel at BrazilPhotos

OO Amazon Deforestion Once Again Soars Driven By Soy Production – and in the Bolivian savannah as well, exploding demands from growing populations outstrip current supplies. Takeaways:

Amazon deforestation has nearly doubled in 2 years to 2 million acres in 2016,

Driven by agro giants

Seeking remote lands with weak regulations

To grow mostly soy that fuels the production of meat for ever more people.

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Savannah is also an important carbon-storing and biodiverse ecosystem,

But Bolivia places food sufficiency over its preservation.

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Only about 15 % of the world’s forests remain – the rest are degraded and fragmented.

From Green to Gray – as Bolivian forest is destroyed to grow crops, especially soy. Imagine the thousands of species of plants and animals that have lost their homes due to deforestation. Credit Jim Wickens at Ecostorm

OO Brazilian Savanna, Bolivian Rainforest At Risk From Soy Production says a new report Takeaways:

Soy is the main feed for livestock that supply fast food chains like Burger King.

Musician and naturalist Bernie Krause is one of the world's leading experts in natural sound. Krause has been recording "soundscapes" - the wind in the trees, the chirping of birds, the songs of humpback whales - for over forty years and has amassed the largest archive in the world.

Nature’s Choruses Are Slowly Fading - when we destroy forests and other natural ecosystems, we forever silence many voices that also had a right to live on Earth.

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HALF OF THE DIVERSITY OF LIFE MAY BE GONE BY 2050

A Few Of Many Friends We Are Extinguishing via a combination of numbers of people and our consumption of resources. Source www.somepets.com

OO Half Of The World’s Species Could Become Extinct By 2050 biologists say, unless we humans can tackle climate change and slow our population growth.

Dozens Of Animal And Plant Species Go Extinct DAILY, scientists estimate, disappearing at 1,000 to 10,000 times the natural rate, primarily from human activities driving habitat loss, introduction of exotic species and global warming. Source www.tourdestfu.com

OO At The Vatican, A Call To Avoid ‘Biological Extinction’ - ‘Nothing less than a reordering of our priorities based on a moral revolution can succeed,’ say sponsors of the recent conference.

A working draft of a paper presents the case that we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction of plant and animal life the globe has seen—with considerably dangerous, catastrophic consequences for humanity:

“Translated into the language of equity, humanity’s enormous success in recent decades is very likely to have been a down payment for future failure.”

@@ Biodiversity – Why Is It Important? A View From Down Under. It’s not just species, but the web of life, upon which humans depends, that is threatened.

Consuming resources sustainably: no further destruction or damage of the regenerating sources of vital resources.

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NEARLY 50 % LIKELY:

GLOBAL WARMING WILL DRASTICALLY, RAPIDLY COOL

NW EUROPE, NE NORTH AMERICA, BY 2100

Feeling Chilly Yet? Global warming has a nearly 1 in 2 chance of triggering a rapid, drastic regional cooling within a decade for lands bordering the North Atlantic before 2100, much sooner than thought possible previously, new analyses show. Source “Day After Tomorrow” official movie trailer at youtube.com

By 2100 Nearly 50% Likely scientists warn, due to climate change. For millennia, parts of northwest Europe have enjoyed a climate about 5C warmer than lands elsewhere at the same latitude. New analyses of reputable climate models indicate:

An almost 50% chance of rapid cooling -within a decade –

Of the North Atlantic, which will rapidly cool nearby northeastern America and northwest Europe.

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Normally, as seawater flows north it cools, gets denser and sinks,

Pushing warmer, deeper water to the surface –

It’s like a giant heat conveyor belt: this warms the regional climate .

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As global warming melts Arctic glaciers, the enormous flow of

freshwater forms a lighter layer over the heavier North Atlantic seawater;

this risks slowing and even collapsing the cycle of

sinking heavy cold water and uprising warmer deep water.

@@ How Climate Change Might Already Be Slowing the Heat Conveyor Belt as explained by some very respected atmospheric and climate scientists.

Such a collapse would shut off a major source of climatic heat

for the surrounding coasts, northeastern North America and northwest Europe,

far outweighing the global warming atmospheric effect.

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New research shows that this collapse occurs in nearly 50% of

the climate models that best simulate North Atlantic stratification (temperature layers).

Despite the usual uncertainty inherent in such analyses,

Researchers warn that overall, that percentage underestimates the real chances.

Donald Trump’s Own Children Likely Face Climate Apocalypse in their lifetimes; the likely crash of civilization that follows will crash their fortune and survival chances for their kids – and all of ours. Unless, of course, Trump acts to cut emissions, hugely. Source heavy.com

it’s shunting a series of storms to the west coast, and cutting off arctic air to the rest of the US.

Monthly record hot averages are being broken throughout the US, including night time average temperatures.

Both are signs of ongoing climate change.

“This week has been an up close look at the DNA of what we are seeing in the big picture: relative to historical norms, extreme heat continues to outpace extreme cold across almost every place, season and time of day in the USA.” — Deke Arndt, who leads climate monitoring at the NCEI, National Centers for Environmental Information, a federal agency.

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MELTDOWN

@@ A New Gigantic Crack Presages a Coming Massive Antarctic Iceberg which could destabilize the ice shelf of the Larsen Ice Shelf. Each new iceberg helps further the speed of pouring more glacier into the sea, and ensuring more sea rise.

Think Ice Cubes - the iceberg, already overhanging the sea, doesn’t add to sea rise, but the ice behind it that is unleashed by the breakoff of the berg then becomes the new ice shelf – which is like adding more ice cubes – and sea rise – to the ocean.

OO Massachusetts Bill Would Require State To Use 100% Renewable Energy By 2050

OO The Age Of The Giant Battery Is Almost Upon Us – That they may someday revolutionize electrical grids has long enthralled clean-power advocates and environmentalists. Now it’s attracting bankers with the money to make it happen.

OO What’s Next For Renewables In Cities? Plenty – it all depends on many factors, but rooftop solar is taking off in cities worldwide, as it becomes cost competitive with other energy sources.

homeowners with solar panels and batteries could soon trade their electricity in a digital marketplace developed by a consortium of electricity providers, energy tech startups, energy retailers and energy agencies.

OO China: This Is What 4 Million Solar Panels Look Like From Space On the Tibetan Plateau in eastern China, 4 million solar panels silently soak up the sun as part of the largest solar farm in the world, spreading over 10 square miles of the high desert landscape.

OO Thousands Forced From Homes By Flooding In California Tech Hub, San Jose

See below for Why Califronia Is Flooding

OO South Florida Continues Prep For Sea Level Rise this sounds like a slow motion rollout of the little kid plugging his finger into the dike. Good luck at keeping back the sea.

OO New Hampshire: Maple Syrup Producers Face Challenges In Warming World and say they are feeling the impact of climate change, as winters become warmer and frigid nights so critical to their business become fewer.

But At A Heavy Cost in the coming decades, says a major climate change study, as Vancouver temperatures exceed those of present-day Southern California in the coming decades.

OO Global Warming Is Shrinking US Colorado River, Vital To 40 Million Americans says a new study. The most important waterway in the American Southwest could reduce its flow by more than a third by 2100.

OO Africa: Somalia Faces Unprecedented Drought Even the hyenas won’t eat the dead sheep, goats and camels, which litter the landscape in Somalia’s northwest Somaliland region. There is too little meat on them.

Waiting For Water as military trucks roam the city delivering water daily. Credit Christina Holmes

OO Peru: La Paz Struggles In A World Without Water after losing its glaciers. Takeaways:

Close to 40% of the andes’ tropical glaciers melted away between 1980 and 2009.

In La Paz, human incompetence further ate into finite water resources.

Can It Be Saved From Us? Pollution (chemical, fecal, plastics), overfishing, habitat destruction, and the warming and acidification of climate change have all led to plummetting marine assets. A video explores the issue.

OO Plan To Save Great Barrier Reef Has Been Set Back Decades Australian experts say, at least two,

after the fragile ecosystem suffered its worst-ever bleaching last year.

OO Climate Change In The North Sea: Oysters In, Cod Out – as it warms, for now. MEH: As the sea further warms and acidifies, you can forget even oysters … start thinking jellyfish and algae, often toxic algae.

OO Why Floodplains Could Be California’s Buffer Against Climate Groundwater recharge, flood protection and wildlife habitat all depend on floodplains. Now there’s a new movement underway in California to revive them in order to ease California’s dramatic swings between drought and flood.

OO New York Energy Efficiency Could OffsetNuclear Plant Shutdown says a new report.

OO Urban Heat Islands: Cooling Things Down With Trees, Green Roads And Fewer Cars and other innovations as city temperatures rise.

A flexible white film about the thickness of a sheet of aluminum foil can cool objects in direct sunlight without energy or water consumption, researchers reported earlier this month in Science. Anthropocene Magazine.

OO Changing Carbon From Waste Into Gold by pulling out carbon dioxide from plant emissions, and using it to create saleable products. Can it help?

OO Drones Are Helping Design The Solar Power Plants Of The Future - A cottage industry is growing around new technology for solar power developers to design, build and operate solar farms.

OO How EU Can Limit Coal’s Life For The Cost Of A Pint Of Beer – Charging a carbon tax of $32 per ton of carbon dioxide would cost each European about $5 annually, the price of a beer. It’s getting cheaper all the time to drive Europe’s dirtiest power plants into retirement.

OO What Will It Take To Get Canada’s Arctic Off Diesel? An Inuit community is building a small hydro project that might be a model for many others.

OO Deep Sea Life Faces Dark Future Due To Warming And Food Shortage as a new study reveals negative impact of climate change, human activity, acidification and deoxygenation on ocean and its creatures.

OO Groups Sue EPA To Protect Wild Salmon From Climate Change seeking to protect wild salmon threatened by rising water temperatures attributed in part to climate change in two major rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

Even As Recent Heatwaves Spark HealthWarnings – Australia’s government continue to ignore the link between that, and selling the coal that intensifies them via global warming. Note the purple – that where temperatures are soaring over 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Source news.com.au

The Destiny of Many Eastern US Forests which are cut and sold to Europe to be made and burned as pellets.

OO The EU’s Renewable Energy Policy Is Making Global Warming Worse – with member countries wasting money by subsidising the burning of wood for energy says a new report.

OO Most Wood Energy Schemes Are A ‘Disaster’ For Climate Change - Using wood pellets to generate low-carbon electricity is a flawed policy that is speeding up, not slowing down, climate warming, shows a new study, which says emissions from pellets are higher than coal.

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FIXING CLIMATE CHANGE...

@@A Simple And Smart Way To Fix Climate Change given by Dan Miller in 2014 at a Ted talk suggests a way to profit as we tackle climate change, by finally charging those who sell and use fossil fuels – and distributing the revenues back to all of us.

The strategy is sure to speed transition to clean renewable energy. What’s not to like? Check it out!

How unusual has the weather been? No one event is “caused” by climate change, but global warming, which is predicted to increase unusual, extreme weather, is having a daily effect on weather, worldwide.

Most of the US is experiencing far warmer temperatures than normal, with monthly average records being broken. Unusually heavy rains have released California from a SURFACE water drought, but significantly depleted California aquifers keep the state in a GROUNDWATER drought , which will likely take decades to disappear. It also means this major US agricultural region has a small safety net, when the next dry year strikes.

Much of the areas surrounding the North Pole are experiencing much warmer than normal temperatures – not good news for our Arctic thermal shield of ice. Hotter than usual temperatures continue to dominate human habitats.

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There is, of course, much more news on the consequences and solutions to climate change. To get it, check out this annotated resource list I’ve compiled, “Climate Change News Resources,” at Wordpress.com here. For more information on the science of climate change, its consequences and solutions you can view my annotated list of online information resources here.

To help you understand just what science does and does NOT do, check this out!

Every day is Earth Day, folks, as I was reminded by this wild flower and beetle I photographed one spring.Making the U.S. a global clean energy leader will ensure a heck of a lot more jobs, and a clean, safe future. If you’d like to join the increasing numbers of people who want to TELL Congress that they will vote for clean energy candidates you can do so here. It’s our way of letting Congress know there’s a strong clean energy voting bloc out there.